Music in your ears and fire in your belly

Update: Check out my playlists on Spotify! (links in the sidebar)

Music is great; we all like music, or at least, we all should like music. Music has been shown to have a whole host of positive benefits on the human psyche, mood and performance, but as this is a fitness blog, we'll stick to that topic. There have been a multitude of studies on the effect of music on sports performance, so here is a little, in-no-way-comprehensive round-up of a few relevant studies I happened across in 10 lazy minutes on Google Scholar.

This paper found that synchronous music enhanced performance in a 400m run; this paper found that both slow and fast music enhanced the time to completion (over a no music control) for 500m rowing sprints, with the fast music slightly outperforming slow. So for anaerobic performance, fast music or music that is in time with our activity is preferable, but if you prefer slow music, go for it. These two papers found that listening to 'arousing' (their word, not mine) music during warm-up (and only during warm up) leads to higher heart rate, which subsequently led to greater power outputs in tests. This means that you don't have to be hammering your ears into oblivion throughout your workout, in fact a quick blast of music before a set may be all you need to see a positive effect.

There is literally no article in which I will not put a picture of a scantily clad female. 

You may want to keep that music going through your set however, as this paper showed that self-selected motivational music increased muscular endurance, allowing subjects to hold a weight for longer than in a white noise condition; so your favourite pump up song may let you grind out an extra rep or two on a hard set, leading to bigger and better gains in the long run. Furthermore, this paper found that "significant increases in strength performance occurred when arousal was high", the arousal in this study was the result of imagery and breathing exercises, but as the above studies show, spinning a tune that stirs some emotion in you will achieve arousal, ergo likely bringing about these increases in strength performance.

If one entertainment source isn't enough to satisfy you, and like most millennials you need a constant stream of digital media into your face, this study showed that a combo of motivational music and video enhanced performance on a maximal effort run. It's probably not ideal to start watching Braveheart in the middle of your next set of bench, but if it could be safely done so, watching the right videos could make your cardio sessions both more fun and more productive.

At this point, I am going to share some of my own favourite lifting music which is almost entirely aggressive hip-hop, metal and hardcore; this certainly will not be for everyone so if you want to clock out now with the knowledge that listening to the music you like will let you get more out of your sessions, feel free to do so. If you are lacking angry songs by angry men (and ladies), then read/watch/listen on.

Hip-Hop
I considered jumping in at the deep end (double meaning full intended) with some of the heaviest stuff I listen to, but that would scare 99% of people, so we'll start crowd friendly...ish. Firstly, I listen to hip hop, not radio rap (call me a snob) I don't listen to anywhere near the amount that I used to, but what I do listen to tends to be verbose and magniloquent (think Lupe Fiasco, KOOL A.D., Jay Electronica, Elzhi, Aesop Rock) not always the in-your-face high energy tunes that lend themselves well to a high intensity training session. Nevertheless, here are some suggestions that may be lesser known (as I will assume everyone knows that The Chronic was a good album and Biggie may have had a decent song or two):

I love Danny Brown, he treads the line between intelligent and ignorant rap like no-one else. Either way, he always has incredible production (including loads of big 'EDM' names on his newer stuff) and rarely, if ever, has a bad verse.

Snowgoons are a production team from Germany who consistently make huge sounding boom-bap beats. All MCs are guest spots, so the verses can vary, but they have loads of material, and there is some gold in there.

P.O.S. brings a strange blend of hip-hop, punk and electronic; not all tracks are super high energy, but when they are (like the above, one of my favourite songs ever) there is no pause for breath.

Run the Jewels are getting some well deserved recognition finally, as El-P has had 10 years plus repping the ultra minority of gingers in hip-hop. High energy production and non-stop bars from 2 top calibre MCs, also not afraid to get political on videos, if that is your thing.

Despite the name, Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire fires out smart lyrics at a million words a minute with one of the best flows in rap. Get him on a big beat and it's absolute magic.

Wu-Tang. You should know them. You should listen to them. You should also watch this video if you haven't.

Hardcore
If you see me in the gym, its highly likely I'm listening to something like the following:

If you are an emotionally dark and crippled human being like me, you too may fall in love with Counterparts. With some of the most profoundly negative, yet cathartic lyrics ever committed to tape (or whatever they commit to these days), pushing your physical capacities to their limit whilst blasting Counterparts is a near transcendental experience.

A band that just does everything right, Hundredth make pitch perfect hardcore, just try listen to the "don't you fucking test me" drop in the above song without feeling a hit of adrenaline.

Von Wolfe appeared, dropped a 6 track EP of disgustingly good hardcore and then swiftly and tragically disappeared. Wasted potential aside, what we do have is a masterpiece of raw aggression.

Proving that anything the boys can do, girls can do just as well, we have Vales. Female fronted hardcore that pulls absolutely no punches.

The Ghost of a Thousand make music that makes me want to break things.

Liferuiner adds 20kg to your squat. Just look at the singer, I bet he can bench 4 plates.

This video has criminally low views for how incredible Statues are. Please watch it and be as blown away by both their music and the singer's glorious beard.

In case it is not clear, I love hardcore.

Metal(core)
It's different to hardcore. Sort of.

Misery Signals, the masters for over a decade.

Leaders of the new school. Northlane's first 2 albums were incredible, then their singer literally screamed his voice to it's breaking point. That's the price you pay for greatness. I can't think of any other singers that have the range of highs, lows and cleans that Adrian managed on early Northlane.

The Devil Wears Prada keep getting better, they just do everything right. Fantastic cleans, booming yells, one of the tightest live bands I've seen and even if it is not exactly on my wavelength, I have to admit there is something pretty cool about loving Jesus so much that you scream your face off about it.

When you need some Dillinger Escape Plan, only Dillinger will do. Is it genius or is it noise? Well, it's both. Also the singer is jacked, so clearly his music is fit for lifting.

The closest I have ever come to a religious experience is seeing this song live. The Chariot were something special. Their last album 'One Wing' is genuinely considered a modern masterpiece. Something about being a God botherer compels you to make incredible metal apparently.

Embrace the End do not let up. Speed riffs, blast beats and 2 guys screaming at you, this is the musical equivalent of PCP.

Call it technical metalcore, call it progressive deathcore, Born of Osiris know how to make some incredibly heavy beautiful music.

Speaking of technical deathcore (and finishing this list deeply in the stupid heavy regime)...Animosity.

If you have made this far, congratulations, you are probably me. Hi David, you should go and do something useful with your life now.